Harvard Business School

The following items are tagged Harvard Business School.

Team Building, One Player at a Time

Posted by & filed under Negotiation Skills.

In late October, the Detroit Tigers were preparing to face off against the San Francisco Giants in Major League Baseball’s World Series. In 2002 and 2003, the Tigers had two of the worst seasons in baseball history, losing a combined 225 games. But through years of calculated decision making and negotiations, team president Dave Dombrowski and his staff rebuilt the team from the ground up, writes Noah Trister of the Associated Press. The Tigers have reached the World Series for the second time in seven seasons and, at the time of this writing, are favored to beat the Giants.

The Role of Urban Planners in Negotiations: Case Study of Israeli-Palestinian Negotiations

Posted by & filed under Conflict Resolution, Middle East Negotiation Initiative.

Can urban planning tools help negotiators develop creative solutions to complex disputes?  Karen Lee Bar-Sinai, Loeb Fellow at Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD), recently explored this topic in a talk entitled “The Role of Urban Planners in Negotiations: Case Study of Israeli-Palestinian Negotiations.” The first in a series of seminars co-sponsored by the Middle

There is No ‘I’ in Team, Only in Organizations

Posted by & filed under Negotiation Skills.

The old saying goes, “there is no ‘I’ in team,” but recent research by Program on Negotiation faculty member and Harvard Business School Associate Professor Francesca Gino and others suggests that an organization should pay attention to the various individuals it recruits, and by doing so it can improve employee retention and productivity.

In Deal Making, Broaden Your Focus

Posted by & filed under Business Negotiations.

Imagine that you are in charge of renting a new location for a branch of your company in a nearby city. After researching the reputations of a number of local real estate agents, you meet with several and choose the one who seems most knowledgable and responsive.

Bring Back Your Deal from the Brink: Weigh the Benefits of a Concession

Posted by & filed under Business Negotiations.

Another option for dealing with difficult negotiations is to craft what Harvard Law School professor Robert C. Bordone calls a “workaround” – a strategy for meeting your current goals without the involvement or support of your adversary. You might be able to induce a yes with a tempting concession on a key issue, according to Bordone. Offering a concession can be a risky strategy, as it may only encourage someone to push for more. But if a concession would allow you to move beyond that person once and for all, it may be your best option.

Bring Your Deal Back from the Brink: Probe the Other Side’s Point of View

Posted by & filed under Business Negotiations.

How can you figure out the motives behind someone’s seemingly stubborn position? Begin by questioning her about the problem she is trying to solve. Deal blockers may be held back by financial, legal, personal, or other constraints you don’t know about, according to Harvard Business School professor Deepak Malhotra. A tough stance could also communicate a psychological need that isn’t being satisfied.

The Practical Art of Improvising an Agreement

Posted by & filed under 1 Day Courses, Executive Training.

It’s a fact: negotiation can’t be scripted. That’s true whether you’re negotiating a mega-deal or buying a used car. Whatever the context, you can’t dictate what your counterpart is going to do or say any more than you’d let them dominate you. Successful negotiation thus requires strategic agility and being nimble moment to moment, so you can adjust and adapt as the process unfolds. Challenging the static model of standard win-win and hardball approaches, Harvard Business School professor Michael Wheeler demonstrates the practical art of improvising an agreement.

Goals Gone Wild

Posted by & filed under Negotiation Skills.

Max H. Bazerman sat down with Sean Silverthorne of Harvard Business School’s Working Knowledge to discuss goal setting and how to effectively set goals on an individual and organizational level.

Researchers from top business schools have collaborated on research demonstrating that, in some cases, goal setting may actually do more harm than good.